Hello all, Last year I went through a voluntary surrender with Northern Rock. Prior to this the house was on the market for 200,000 and NR had a value against it of 190,000. The property was put on the market with a local agent (not one I would have used), orginally at 139,000 then dropped to 129,000 a month later, and then dropped to 117,000 a few weeks later. A sale has just been finalised at 106,000! I have a mortage of 179,000 on the property, which leaves me, well, in the brown stuff. Is it fair for a property to be sold at 40% less than the original valuation? Can you appeal against this? I've read somewhere (but cant remember where) that the lender has a moral obligation to sell the property at a 'fair' price, and that you can appeal / complain somehow? Has anyone come across this or know how it's done? Any help greatly appreciated!

thanks guys.. i wish it was a simple as staying in Spain As far as the shares go.. no I'm single so I guess they would need to stay with me. if I went down the IVA route, the share would be safe though? In essence they're not actually worth anything at the moment anyway.. they maybe in years to come, but at the moment they have no tangiable value

Hi Gizmo, Thanks for your response. There will be no investment on my part in the new business (other than labour), the other directors are buying into an idea and want me to be part of the company as a major shareholder. Yes, at some point (although this is unclear) there will be some inheritance. This will probably be less than the negative equity amount mentioned, but might not be far off. Obviously dont want to think along those lines but i guess you have to think long term. I dont particularly want to go down the BR route, but not sure I have a choice? Presumably it's best not to go down that route and try to reach an agreement without that? As far as share values; 75k has been set aside by the partner to keep the business going for a set period of time until it sees profit, so on that basis I guess you could arge that they are worth my % of the 100%. I dont know your background but you seem very well informed, so do you happen to know if I could somehow not go bankrupt, and who I could speak to to assist with reaching an agreement?

Hello all, I've not posted here for a long time. Basically I've got myself into a complete mess, and yes some of it is my stupid fault. I'm not proud of it, but i am where i am. I've read similar posts but not quite as complicated as mine.. and havent found any answers either. I'll try and explain without going into war and peace.. and I'd really appreciate some constructive advise from anyone who may have been in a similar situation or might be able to offer some advise. So, 2 years ago I decided to leave England for a new life and new business in Spain. At that point a had 2 x credit cards with approx 5000 each, which i couldnt afford to pay off in full, so decided to continue to carry on paying the minimum balance. I also had a small house in the UK which I arranged to be rented out for 9 months as a safety net in case I decided to move back. As time went by the business took slower to create an income than planned, and the credit cards became increasingly difficult to pay. I managed to reach an agreement with them for token payments for a 6 month period, but in that time i moved to another rented property and whilst I know this was silly, I didnt both getting back in touch with the credit card companies and as such this debt is outstanding. They havent chased me, as they dont know where i am, yes this was a stupid thing to do, but I cant change what I've already done. I wish i could. To complicate matters further, after the tennant moved out of my UK property, i couldnt find another one and couldnt keep up the payments on the mortgage, so decided to 'hand the property back' to Northern Rock. This decision was based on the fact that I had no intentions to move back to the UK, and figured it was the lesser of two evils. As with other threads I've read, due to the plummiting UK property market, the value of my house has 'dropped' by £90,000 now leaving me in negative equity of over £70,000. I happen to know that the property has just been sold and it is currently going through motions. I have no assets to pay this off, nor do I have £70,000 (or £1000) lying under the bed. In the past 8 weeks, my father has been diagnosed as terminally ill, and as such I cannot justify being abroad and I have decided to return to the UK in 8 weeks for the foreseeable future and close the business there. In parallel to this (and quite fortunately), I have been asked to go into a partnership as a Director for business in England, which is currently being registered in companies house. So, whilst I have the credit card debts that may well have been written off by now, they will clearly show on my file and i assume will cause me serious problems in my personal life for some time - mobile phone, tenancy agreement, car lease or HP, and anything else that requires a credit search now and for quite a while? In addition to this, with the sale of the house now being finalised, I'm assuming someone will want to have a chat to me about the £70,000 negative equity position with my old house. And finally, as a director of a new business in the UK, this presents me with some serious problems: 1) should the company need a loan or any sort of credit, i understand the directors all get credit searched? if so, then this will hinder the company getting any credit. 2) I assume I will immediately be 'on the radar' once I'm registered at company house, and could therefore cause visits to the business address either for the credit cards or more likely the house. 3) I have not discussed my financial situation with the other directors (and didnt particularly want to) but now I think maybe I have no choice. So, I guess I have a couple of options: a) declare bankruptcy and face the consequences for however long it takes. And I assume I would need to be removed from the company as a director (although could probably remain as a shareholder?) but not be able to obtain and credit / bank accounts etc for years and years to come. b) Or, sit tight and wait till somebody comes knocking - although as I will need to rent a property and have utilities bills, car insurance etc (as well as some sort of paper trail in companies house) it wont take long before someone comes banging the door at my new rented property (if I can even get one) or at the registered business address via the paper trail from companies house. So, a complete mess.. and I just dont know what to do. I have to go back to the UK and face the music, but I just dont know what this will mean to my life (both personal and business) for the foreseeable future. Whilst i have no problems paying said debts off with whatever I can afford to be, I'm not sure whether this is even an option (particularly with the negative equity) as it will take me 30 years or so to pay. if you've read this far, thanks for staying with me.. I just hope you can offer some advise or point me at someone that might be able to offer me some practical advise about how to tackle this and what to expect the impact to be to my day to day living. Thanks for reading. casaboy

Hello all, I'm looking for some guidance from anyone who's been through anything similar to me as I'm sick to death of it now! It all started back in April this year when I moved out of my house to move abroad and closed my gas account with npower. I'd been with British Gas for several years and then decided to move over to npower in early in 2005 to reduce my costs, at which point they put me on a budget scheme in accodance with the size of the house, the fact that i lived alone etc. Shortly after I moved abroad, I received a letter from npower stating that the closing balance was £486.00. Due to the length of time I had been with them I can only assume that this had been accumilating at BG also and they had taken this on when I switched accounts. However, I was never made aware of this and not once was I ever informed that i was not making the correct monthly payments on my account. With the move and everything else going on at the time, the letter went to the bottom of a pile and was forgotten about. In July, I received my first communication from BCW, stating that they had taken on the debt and demanding payment in full, if I wanted to prevent court action. As there was no way I could make this payment in full, I therefore called npower to offer them a payment arrangement but was told it was too late and the debt was not theirs anymore, and that I needed to deal with BCW. I questioned why I only received one closing invoice and no reminders but the girl could not tell me. So, I went back to BCW with a suggestion of payment over 12 months, and I tried to explain how this situation had occurred, and that I had never had any problems with npower or any other debts, but they of course were not interested in any of this. They refused my offer of 12 months and said they would take me to court and my credit file would be severely impacted if I did not pay in full. As I simply did not have this money I went away to think things through. Then the phone calls started, every day i receive a call, being told I need to sell something or borrow some money from a friend or family member, and that I'm not doing enough to pay the debt. I honestly can not believe the way they speak to me sometimes, and as time has gone on I have started being as abrupt with them as they are with me. However, none of this helps the debt situation. They recently called and offered a reduced debt of £370, but I simply do not have a lump some of money to pay them. I therefore recently sent them a cheque for £50 to try and ease the ongoing pressure but the phone keeps ringing asking for full remaining payment. I'm now getting used to the fact that this will end up going to court, which although is a little scary, maybe the judge will look at this more fairly than they are! It's interesting, that they have been now threatening court fro several months but have not yet followed this up. Maybe they dont want it to go to court?! has anyone else been subject to the pressure of BCW, and how unreasonable they are to compromise on getting a debt paid off? (that I am completely willing to pay!!!) Also, none of this would ever have occurred had npower put me on the correct budget scheme, and informed me what was happening with my account, or sent me a reminder about the debt. Is this standard practice with BG / npower??? Any guidance would be hugely appreciated..

Hi all, I'd just like to share my recent and very pleasant experience with Smile... I dont know the specific dates but it was all over within a matter of 2 weeks! After requesting my charges / statements by post, I also requested by secure message after reading Bobafets post. Sure enough, within a week I received a nice little printed spreadsheet through the post detailing all of the charges on my Smilemore account. I immediately counted them all up... and to my utter amazement it totalled £3895 + interest. I therefore sent a polite but firm secure message requesting that the unfair charges were paid back.. and stated that I would allow them 14 days to respond. Within 5 days I received a letter (which incidentally was backdated 1 week for some reason) stating that 'as a gesture of goodwill', they will be paying back the £3895, however, would not be paying back the 'debit interest' as this is not a charge and therefore cannot be refunded. Within a couple of days, the £3895 was deposited into my account. Although I have since moved the money elsewhere and I am now chasing the interest also. Sorry this post isnt very specific... But just thought I'd let you know how easy it was for me to get almost £4k out of them! ))